


Part of the Journey

by Myrime



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Don't copy to another site, F/M, Family, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Iron Family, Pepper Potts Feels, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Precious Peter Parker, Protective Peter Parker, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 08:06:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18869161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myrime/pseuds/Myrime
Summary: Peter is a big brother now. While he is still grieving Mr. Stark's loss, he will make sure that Morgan grows up being loved. That's what family does.





	Part of the Journey

**Author's Note:**

> I was never going to acknowledge Tony's death, and yet I'm a sucker for angst and I love the idea of Peter and Morgan being siblings. So, here we go.  
> Enjoy!

After the funeral, Peter does not want to go home. The last thing he remembers from _before_ is going on a school trip. It is now five years later and everything is different.

Mr. Stark – Tony. Peter can barely think about it. It is not fair to wake up to a world where Tony Stark is gone. Worse, where he left behind so much.

Morgan is brilliant. Even sad and still shy, she has latched onto Peter with the trust of someone who has known him for longer than the few weeks Peter has spent at the lake house now. Before he could even introduce himself, she had known who he is – which is likely due to the pictures Peter has found of himself in the house. No matter that five years passed without hope of reversing the Snap, Tony never let go of him.

May has already returned to New York to get back to work, but Peter does not yet have the strength to follow her. She is here often enough for them to not miss each other. New York is still in chaos. With half the population suddenly coming back to life, everyone is scrambling to get their lives back on track. Peter knows he will manage to. He just is not ready to face the rest of his life already. Not without Tony in it.

This house at the lake is so quiet that is hardly seemed to fit Tony Stark when Peter first came here. He has long since begun to see the appeal. It is so peaceful out here. A place of growth. Of healing. It tells Peter a lot about the man Tony has become and deserved to be.

He likes sitting at the little pier, watching the waves. Even with his enhanced senses, the world out here is calm.

“Peter,” Morgan calls and comes running down the hill from her tent house. She has been hiding in there all day, and neither Peter nor Pepper could convince her to come out.

A smile appears automatically on Peter’s face. He is still mostly a child, too, but he understands now how May could always have a smile for him after Ben died. There is an innocence in Morgan that has already been shaken enough without them wanting to add to it.

“Hey, M,” he greets her as she plops down on the pier next to him. “Are you hungry?”

None of them has been eating well, but Pepper constantly pushes food on him, either because she knows about his enhanced metabolism or because she wants to soothe her guilt for missing most meals herself. May cooks for them on the weekends, making sure to leave lots of leftovers. At some point during the past five years, May has learned to cook an edible meal.  

Morgan barely looks at the bowl with cut apple slices that Peter pushes towards her. Instead, she stares at him, wide-eyed and full of hope.

“Can you take me flying, Peter?”

Taken aback, Peter does not understand her question at first. Then it dawns on him. She knows who he is. Everybody Peter has been talking to over the past weeks knows who he is. His secret identity as Spider-Man is not so secret anymore. As much as he had clung to it, it is a relief to be known.

“I don’t fly,” he finally says, although he is sure he will not win this argument on a technicality.

True enough, Morgan pouts. “Dad’s shown me videos. It’s almost like flying.”

Peter’s head is still reeling at the thought of Tony showing his daughter videos of Peter, telling her about him, letting him be part of her life. Yet he is quick to at least try and shoot down her mad plan.

“I don’t think that is a good idea.” He hopes she is not going to ask why. If she expects him to list reasons he has already lost. His method of trying what his webs can do was to throw himself off a building and hope they would hold, after all.

“Daddy took me flying sometimes,” Morgan says, eyes bright with building tears.

In response, Peter’s throat constricts. Every casual mention of Tony does that. “It’s not safe, though,” he tries to argue, wincing when she looks upset. “Don’t look at me like that. You could ask your mum. She has a suit too.”

That was the wrong thing to say, Peter knows that when Morgan’s shoulders slump. “She had DUM-E lock it away. She doesn’t –” That is when the tears spill over. “I miss my Dad, Peter.”

Acting on instinct, Peter opens his arms, glad when Morgan throws herself into them. He remembers that May’s hugs always made him feel better.

“Shh, I know,” Peter murmurs into her hair, feeling horribly inadequate. “I miss him too. But he loves you, remember? He wouldn’t want you to cry.”

If anything, that makes it worse. Morgan sobs loudly. “He’s not here anymore, though.”

That is the simple truth of the matter. One morning, Tony left home to save the universe and never returned. Even as one of the lucky ones who got saved, Peter is not sure it was worth it, not with this little girl crying in his arms.

“But he’s watching,” Peter says with more conviction than he feels. “Your Dad will always be watching over you.”

When Morgan looks up, her nose is red and running, and the expression on her face is determined. “Did you?” she asks. “When you were dead?”

“I –” Peter thinks he has manoeuvred himself into a dead-end here, but going back now would only make things worse. “Do you know about the stones everybody’s talking about? They are what created the universe. I think that, when your Dad used them, he became a part of the universe in a way that none of us is.”

It is the kind of lies people often tell children. He desperately wants to believe it too.

“Why can’t he come back the way you did?” Morgan frowns up at him.

Frankly, Peter has asked himself the same thing. With the stones in their possession, they could have done so much good. Even ignoring that, Tony had apparently figured out time travel. Smarter – or more cynical – people than him have made a decision, though, and now they just have to live with it.

“I wasn’t really dead,” Peter tries to explain. “But while he can’t come back, he isn’t really gone either. He is everywhere around us.”

With a small huff, Morgan buries her head back against Peter’s shirt. “I don’t want him to be everywhere,” she says, sounding as indignant and lost as Peter feels. “I just want him to be here.”

“I know.” Since Morgan is not looking, Peter allows himself to cry too. Just a little. He will pull himself together for her in just a minute. “I want him to come back too.”

 

* * *

 

That night, when Peter looks into Morgan’s room on his way to bed, he finds her crying, clutching an Iron Man plushie. The sight breaks his heart. It is only when he is already halfway into the room – not sure what he is going to do, just that he has to make it better somehow – that he hears what Morgan is listening to.

Tony’s voice fills the space, telling a story, or maybe reading a book. It is so unexpected that Peter feels tears rising into his eyes as he comes to an abrupt halt. His first instinct is to run. Nothing good will come of constantly dragging his grief back up to the surface. Then he wants to stay, though. To hide under a blanket and let himself be reminded of all the little nuances of Tony.

When he shuffles forward to the bed, Morgan looks up at him with blotchy cheeks and sticks out her hand for him to take, afraid perhaps that he will leave too.

Peter is not sure how he deserves to be loved by this little girl, even though he has only met her a few weeks ago and in the wake of tragedy at that. No matter his doubts, Morgan has latched onto him as if he has always been there. As if he has not been a mere story for all her life.

The recording – for that is what this has to be, courtesy of FRIDAY running the house – gives Peter the perfect excuse not to come up with anything to say. Instead, he sits gingerly down on the bed, trying not to cry when Morgan shifts immediately to press up against him. The Iron Man plushie is caught between them.

Reaching out, Peter wipes the tears out of Morgan’s face, then draws circles on her back. That is what May used to do when he was upset as a child. She simply held him close and gave him something nice to concentrate on. Peter does not feel ready to be the source of strength for anybody else, but Morgan has lost so much, and in Tony’s goodbye video, he has called Peter Morgan’s brother. This is the least he can do to live up to that.

The story goes on for hours. Peter would not have thought Tony to be a capable storyteller, but he makes all the right noises, uses different voices for each character, and never tires when the Morgan on the record asks for another chapter. It is beautiful and reminds Peter of Uncle Ben, of his own parents even. It is also over too soon.

Silence engulfs them when the story cuts out and Tony kisses his daughter goodnight. They have not yet reached the end. It feels like a metaphor that they did not get their happy ending just like these characters have not reached theirs.

“We were going to read the rest after Daddy came home,” Morgan says quietly, voice thick with emotion.

Completely out of his depth, Peter holds her closer. He does not know what to say, if there even is something to say. Each day, he misses Tony. In the end, he was just a family friend, though, just an intern, a protégé. No matter how much Peter might have looked at Tony as a father figure, he was Morgan’s real Dad.

Peter knows a bit about grief. He knows about being left behind, about losing family. He knows that words do not make this easier. He also knows that this is no reason not to try.

“I know I’m not your Dad,” Peter says, only slightly hesitating, “but I could read the rest of the story to you.”

Morgan’s head shoots up, red-eyed and tired, and Peter is afraid he has overstepped. Then, Morgan’s lips twitch into the hint of a smile.

“Would you?” she asks.

If Peter still had doubts, the hope on Morgan’s face would have wiped them away completely. “Of course, I will.”

It might feel a bit like taking Tony’s place when he has not yet completely faded from their lives, but it also brings them closer to him.

Morgan slips out of Peter’s hold and all but runs across her room to pick up the book lying abandoned in the bookcase. New tears fill her eyes as she holds it, but then she returns to the bed and holds it out for Peter to take.

“All right, M,” Peter says, keeping his tone lighter than he feels. “Get back under the cover. You need to tell me if I get a voice wrong.”

They settle more comfortably on the bed, Iron Man still between them. After taking a deep breath, Peter opens the book, finds the right chapter, and, Tony’s voice still in his ear, starts reading.

It is slow going in the beginning. Insecurity has Peter stumbling over the words at first, but his voice gets stronger with each page. Morgan does not throw him out, which helps too.

Half-way through the chapter, Morgan falls asleep. Her grip on the plushie relaxes and her breathing becomes more even, although her face still looks lost.

Instead of closing the book, Peter keeps reading. It is strangely soothing, getting lost in a children’s story, and thinking about Tony watching them. He also does not know if Morgan will want him to read to her again. If so, it will be good practice to know the rest of the chapter. It is also nice to be able to be the strong one for once.

A movement catches his attention. When Peter looks up, unwilling to be interrupted, he finds Pepper standing in the doorway to Morgan’s room. She is already in her sleep clothes, looking far more vulnerable than her pristine working clothes and business persona would ever allow. She is also crying. The way she allowed herself only right after Tony di– _left_ when they were still on the battlefield. Right afterwards, she had pulled herself together and did not let anyone see her falling apart. Peter has never been more in awe of her.

Now, though, she does not have any more masks in place. Upon noticing that Peter is looking at her, a small sob escapes her throat and she raises her hand up to her mouth, covering it as if she can take it back. Peter realizes that, apart from Happy and perhaps Rhodey, she does not have anyone to catch her when she is falling apart.

Careful not to disturb Morgan, Peter waves Pepper in. For once, it does not matter that he is a kid, that he usually feels that he can never do anything right. People have always been strong for him. Ben, May, Ned, Tony, and now Pepper. The least he can do is give something back.

When Pepper hesitates, Peter frowns and makes to lay down the book. That gets her moving, and Peter watches her as she gets down carefully on the other side of the bed. Her hand reaches out immediately to pull the blanket farther up Morgan’s shoulders.

Only once she is settled does Peter start reading again. It is less of an effort now. He does not need to be perfect on the first try. They just need to escape reality for a little while.

After another chapter, Peter stops. It is late and they should try to get some sleep. He also, rather selfishly, does not want the book to end. He wants the chance to come back here and feel needed and safe and not quite so lost.

“Thank you,” Pepper whispers next to him.

She is not crying anymore, but her face is still full of emotions she usually does not let anyone see.

“It’s the least I can do,” Peter says, feeling awkward now that he is not reading other people’s words anymore. “You’re Tony’s family and I –”

Guilt wells up inside him, the most familiar of monsters haunting him. Before he can sink back into it, though, Pepper reaches out and takes his hand. Between them, Morgan is still sleeping peacefully and, for a moment, they are all connected, all touching instead of drifting in their misery alone. He does not want to let go of this again.

“ _You_ are family,” Pepper says with vehemence.

Peter believes her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please tell me what you think. (Or rant to me about Endgame. I, for one, am still not over it!)


End file.
